A Step Forewards
by FlightlessBird1122
Summary: Slowly but surely everything Winry's come to know and love is stripped from her, leaving the mechanic broken and alone. But when a familiar face shows up on a cold christmas evening can she learn to forgive and forget?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hello! I have been so busy it's crazy! I have a ton of stories sitting around and I really haven't posted anything of significance for a while so I finally got around to typing up and finishing some of my old stuff. I've never actually posted anything FMA but I did my best:) **

**A Step Forewords**

"There's some money in the closet." Ed whispered, his voice rough, as I changed his bloodied bandages for the umpteenth time today. I smiled wearily back at him.

_"You know that's not necessary Ed. Besides, let's focus on you getting better before paying us for any services." I joked flatly, eying the pale stumps that were previously Edward Elric's left leg and right arm. He shook his head._

_"No, consider it payment," he paused just as I finished tying the new bandages, already lightly splotched with hints of red. The golden eyed boy took a deep breath before looking up from his lap, "for automail." _

_Somehow, I saw this coming, yet I still had to turn away from him. I knew what he'd do once he got what he wanted. Ed would leave and become a State Alchemist, a dog of the military, to study the art that was his and many others' greatest downfall. Then he would try this human transmutation again and, like my family and his mother, would die._

_"Why can't you just accept that you can't win it all Ed?" I asked, crestfallen. I'd known this boy since I was born, eleven years now, and if I learned anything in that time it was that once he set his mind to something there was no going back. No matter how long it took or how bad things seemed, he always saw it through to the end. Always._

_"Because who would I be if I didn't even try?" And that was that._

**AN: So this is all one big story but it's split into parts. Italics being Winry's memories and normal being present time. **

**I love to hear your thoughts:)**


	2. Chapter 2

The scent of cinnamon began to waft from her creation as the apple pie started to take shape. Whenever the blonde girl got into one of her reminiscing sort of moods she always ended up making _their_ favorite. Ed and Al always loved her apple pie and it seemed as if every time they go around to visiting her in Resembool, no matter what the reason, there was a pie in the oven. So now, after years of not seeing them, it became almost habitual to bake one when the Elric brothers' absence became overbearing.

As if the sweet scent of apples and cinnamon would lead them home to her.

Of course, at twenty-four, Winry Rockbell knew that the concept alone was ridiculous but what could one say to her about holding on to childish hopes and dreams? She couldn't let go of the path, yet she was forced to accept that time was ticking away. _"You killed my mom and dad?" I asked shakily. I had always wondered how they'd died. There are lots of ways for a doctor to die on the battlefield, especially since they tended to both sides of the war, but never had it ever crossed my mind that an alchemist had killed them. It was just too ironic, too close to home. My legs didn't seem to be able to hold my weight up any longer so I sunk to the ground. __Vaguely, I heard voices yelling at me but my mind couldn't seem to distinguish what they were saying. Like they were sending me signals they refused to register in my mind. All I knew was the tanned man in front of me who claimed to have killed my parents._

_"What did they do to deserve death in your eyes?" I choked out, tears rolling down my cheeks. The man didn't even try to deny what he'd done. He hardly flinched, as if he were welcoming my ridicule._

"_I deserve to be killed by you." Before then I didn't notice, couldn't have noticed, but now it is as if the water in the dam just flooded out. I hear the screaming, pleading that's coming from my dearest friends. I feel the unbearable pain that seems to be attacking my heart and then I feel the cold hard metal of the weapon I used to hate with everything I had in me. __In my hand was a gun. Cold, merciless, and unforgiving are a few words I'd come to associate them with in my lifetime, but now that I'd found out the truth I'd need to find new adjectives. Those described the alchemists. This gun was a good thing. It would allow me to avenge my parents. Beautiful people like them didn't deserve to die in vain._

_"You do." I wish I were strong like Riza. Strong enough to pull the trigger, but I'm not. Deep down I know I'm not._

_"Shoot Me!"_

_"Don't shoot Winry!" and for the first time in my life, I listened to Edward __Elric._


	3. Chapter 3

"There!" Winry exclaimed as she slid the pie into the warm oven to bake. With two hours on the timer the mechanic decided to work on a new automail blueprint to pass the time. Hopefully this one would be more durable to physical damage while still maintaining its light weight. She was proud of the design but lately it seemed that everything she draws- every sketch, bolt, and plate- seemed to be fit for fighting. For him.

"_What the hell, woman?" Ed seethed as I tightened a bolt just under his right shoulder. _

"_Did that hurt? Oh, I'm sorry. I just figured that the Full Metal Alchemist could take a little pain. I mean, after how horribly mauled your automail was…" I trailed off, having said enough. _

"_Oh __**please**__ Winry! Are you still on that? How many times do I have to tell you that it wasn't my fault?" I set down my wrench gently, lest I do something I may regret to the pigheaded teen before me. I turned to face him even more slowly, my face a mask of indifference._

"_It's never your fault." I stated, he wouldn't contradict me. His stance shifted from arrogant righteous to being almost uncomfortable under my penetrating gaze/ After a minute or so of this I finally broke the silence. "Why don't you talk to me anymore Ed? You know I love you right? You're my best friend. If anything ever happened…" _

_Edward suddenly found something of great interest on the cold dusty floor of my workroom. His golden eyes looked almost molten with some emotion brewing just beyond the surface. Eventually he looked up, "I'm sorry. Does it sound crazy that I don't tell you anything because I'm trying to protect you?" He asked while sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck._

_I did know. _

_All too well, actually. Living with secrets that weighed more every day. Weighed so much that you don't want to get out of bed in the morning. Go on with life. But I'm stronger than that. I have to be for Pinaco and Den and my parents. For Ed._

"_Yeah, I understand." It didn't make it any better, but it did help lighten the load when you knew it wasn't only your burden to carry. _****


	4. Chapter 4

Winry set down her pencil. It had been over an hour and she'd still hardly made a mark on the paper. "I guess Christmas really isn't a day for working after all." The crystal eyed girl stretched as she lifted her stiff body from the wooden chair. The storm outside was as horrible that day as it was every other day of the week and all she could see was white outside of her window.

"I wonder what they're doing today." Winry sighed wistfully. Automail was aways ten times more painful in cold weather since the joins would tend to stop up and creak painfully. There wasn't anything the young mechanic could do for him but she still worried. This was her first Christmas alone. The year before last she still had Granny Pinaco and last year she spent the evening at Gloria's house. Plenty of her friends had invited her to Christmas parties and even a few guys had asked her out on dates but she had told them all that she just didn't feel up to it. Which was true, since she really didn't feel like doing anything but eat pie and sleep.

She still remembered when they were little kids running around in the snow. When they still had their parents and didn't harbor a worry in the world. Now Edward was all screwed up with guilt and responsibility, Al practically followed in his footsteps and Winry was left alone to fend for herself. A sigh escaped her lips as the lonely girl continued up the stairs to her room.

Where did time go?


	5. Chapter 5

_"When are you coming back?" _

_"After all of this is over. I need to end this once and for all. But...will you wait for me Winry? I'll give you half of me if you give half too..." The smitten teenager smiled before hugging him and pressing her lips to his chastely._

_"I'll give ninety percent Ed, but only if you come back." He smiled, just as the train started moving. _

_"Promise"_

He never came back.

Edward Elric and his brother went through that damned gate in the sky and they never came back. Everyday she cursed that place for taking the only people that truly mattered to her away. She had seen him for all of thirty minutes to fix his automail- after _years_ of not seeing him-before he said goodbye and left. Angry could not describe her feelings; she was fed up and done. Winry truly gave up on seeing them again, seeing _him_ again, on the day Granny Pinaco died.

"_I know you love Ed and that you said you'd wait for him but don't waste your life waiting on a man that isn't going to come. A man that treats you like you'll always be there rather than the gem you are Winry. Don't go your whole life waiting on something, someone that isn't going to come."_


	6. Chapter 6

Then she died.

Winry took her advice to heart though. She started dating and opened her own automail business. She moved to Rush Valley for a while before, recently coming back to Resembool for a break. She hadn't forgotten about Ed but she was certainly trying to move on with her life.

There was a knock at the door.

She got up from the couch and walked over to the door, figuring it was a customer, before swinging it open. Only to slam it closed again. There was no way. Edward Elric. Edward freaking Elric was at her door. He looked so much the same as before. Long golden hair and those molten gold eyes, but _he_ is off exploring alternate universes and therefore can not possibly be at her door. She nodded in approval of her deduction. This person may look like Ed but there is no way he is.

So Winry steeled her heart before opening the previously slammed door. On the other side was, indeed, an exact replica of Ed. He looked older, but it _had_ been seven years. He was smirking, but Winry refused to acknowledge it.

"Hello, are you here for automail repairs?" She inquired with her eyes on her feet. The man shrugged.

"Something like that." She led him into her workshop, unable to look him in the eyes. However, if she was going to suffer so was he. Once she'd closed the door, Winry turned around, giving the _stranger_ a brilliant smile.

"So, do I get a name? I don't believe we've met before."

A pained look crossed his face, causing her to _almost_ regret opening her mouth, before he stuck out his hand. She shook it, revering in his warmth. Suddenly, he pulled her to him, engulfing her small form with his body. He nuzzled his face into her hair, breathing in her scent, which he'd been deprived of for too long. "I missed you. So much." The tall man whispered, his body shuddering as he pulled Winry closer to him. She leaned into his familiar embrace, yearning for it to be real this time. For him to really be there holding her just like she'd always wanted.

"I missed you too." She breathed almost inaudibly as she thought about how impossible it all was. But the more the Rockbell thought about it the more impossible it became. The less likely it was that he really was here. Even if it really was Edward Elric, why would he be back here after all this time? How could she just let him barge into her house and assume that she'd be all peachy with him? Winry pulled away from him, suddenly angry.

"Why are you here?" He looked confused at her hostility.


	7. Chapter 7

"Why are you here?" He looked confused at her hostility.

"Huh, Win? I thought you'd be ha-"

"**_Why_. _Are_. _You_. _Here_**?" A poke to his broad and-to her utter resentment-toned chest accented very word. Her eyes were on fire as she stared into his. Winry had always been one to solve her issues through violence and, though she had learned to ignore those urges, they came back full force in this moment in time to the point where the tips of her fingers were just itching for a wrench. However, being the new mature Winry, she stuck with her bare hands.

"To see you!" He finally managed after recovering from his shock at her outburst.  
"After seven freaking years! What the hell Edward! I waited for you! I loved you and you claimed that you felt the same yet as soon as you get a chance you hitch a ride to the other side of the gate! Not to be seen again for another seven freaking years!"

"Just listen to me!" Edward growled, catching the fist heading towards his chest. "I never would have left if I didn't have to Winry!" He started, holding he hands in his. However, Winry had spent all of her adolescent life wanting to listen, just waiting for him to talk. Now, she didn't feel like it. Winry Rockbell was done with doing things on Edward Elric's time.

"No! I'm done with listening and waiting!" She shouted angrily. Ed just looked down guiltily. It isn't as if he doesn't know what he's done to her.

"I love you though…" He whispered. "So I came back because I couldn't bear to never see you again." He stuck his hand into his deep red trench coat, the one from so long ago, and pulled out a small box.

It was perfectly wrapped in pristine gold paper with a shiny silver bow on the top. Her two favorite colors. At least Winry could admit to one beautiful trait about him.

The man knew how to suck up.

No matter how tomboyish the mechanic was there could doubt in anyone's mind as she begrudgingly took the gift from him that she was indeed a girl by the excited glint in her eye. Winry mumbled "Thanks" before sticking it in her pocket. Then she looked up (yes up, it was amazing what puberty could do for a person!) and they just stood like that, unsure of how to proceed.

After a full minute of silence, finally Edward sighed. "Can't we just start over?" Winry contemplated that. Going back to the beginning. Back to when everything made sense and everyone was alive and happy.

She liked the sound of that.

She stuck out her hand. "I'm Winry Rockbell." He smiled the largest, brightest, most amazing smile she'd ever seen before he grasped her hand tightly, as if he never wanted to let her go.

"Edward Elric." They both smiled, unconsciously leaning in toward the other. "Merry Christmas Win."

The first in a long time.

* * *

**AN: And it's done! Just a short Chrismas fic:) I finally finished it and I hope it was at least somewhat enjoyable. It was really short chapters because this was originally a oneshot but i thought it didn't flow well that way+_+ so i made it into short chapters. Thank you for reading!**

**I love reviews :D...Just saying...**


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